Obliviate
by twintailed
Summary: When something's no longer needed, it goes in the attic. And when people disappear from your memories, they always leave traces. Kairi centric, takes place primarily during the events of Chain of Memories.


**_Obliviate_**

_**a/n**_: _Written for a prompt, from a word chosen from 130 possibles. Kairi, 47, attic.  
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Her adoptive father being the mayor, Kairi's house was fairly expansive. She couldn't remember what her previous house had been like before she had showed up on Destiny Islands. Even then, when she was awake enough to explore it properly - under Sora, the boy who came to see her with his friend Riku, insistence - she knew it was big. Riku's, apparently, was boring in comparison, which earned him a playful jab in the ribs. The dining room was twice the size of his house, Sora had said. The kitchen was modern whilst he was older. And her room was a different colour to his; that had long since changed, but it was perhaps the only thing that he could say about her room, at the time. Years had changed that. Then, it had just been a bed. A place to stay. Now it was her own, her place.

Things had come and gone, of course. Toys she no longer wanted, cards for birthdays and Christmas, clothes for special occasions that no longer fit and old scrapbooks made by childish hands full of just as childish photos, all just a slight bit out of focus. Some were of them, though usually missing the point of having them at the centre of the camera, rather at the edge, instead ending up in spectacular blurred artistic impression of Kairi, by Sora, age 5. When Kairi had first reached the point of having something that she no longer wanted in her room, she had asked her parents what to do with it. She felt bad that she didn't want the dolls anymore. They had bought them for her. But she didn't, not really. Not since she'd had permission to go to the play islands. It was much better to have the adventures yourself rather than have the dolls experience them. She hadn't played with them for well over a year, which, to a child, was like forever.

They didn't get angry like she had first thought. Instead, they told her to put them in the attic.

Her father took her out of the hallway and showed her a stairway behind a door that Kairi had always assumed was just a cupboard that was locked. It wasn't, though, and he gave her her own key in case she ever wanted to take stuff up there herself. She felt so proud of that, when he did, feeling like she'd been granted free run of the house. Of course, the key only opened the attic doorway, but that didn't stop her boasting to Sora and Riku that she could get in other locked rooms. This was great until they all found themselves stuck in the closet in the hallway for half an hour until Kairi's mother came past, looking for them. In the end, she admitted it was just for the attic, and had shown them around up there, Sora convinced there would be something majestic just like the house, but they had soon lost interest. It was just a large empty room with a light hanging from the ceiling in the center, boxes down the side, which they couldn't open. That was it.

It wasn't that interesting in the attic, she had to admit. As the years passed, she didn't go up there. It was just another space in the house. She took more things up there, though, especially as her interests changed rapidly as she reached teendom, especially when the islands were restored, thanks to Sora. A lot of things changed then. The transition from child to young adult seemed to the most obvious in those months. Anything to do with play games went up to the attic, even if she had lost interest in them long before. She just hadn't had the heart to take them away, the memories attached to them. But she didn't need them anymore. The empty space that created was used for new clothes, books, anything else she decided she wanted and needed which she hadn't glanced at before, thinking they were for adults or those in high school and so she didn't need them.

That was around the time something happened.

At first it was small things. Just the details of a memory, that she couldn't place. At first, this bothered her, as it grew more and more, making her anxious. Sora had done something but she couldn't remember what. Riku had said something but she couldn't remember how Sora had responded. She couldn't remember if Sora's eyes were brown or blue. But this was only for a few days; after that, she forgot what she was even trying to remember in the first place. She was only friends with Selphie, Tidus, and Waka. There had never been anyone else. She had never lied about an attic key, she had never drawn on the walls of the cave on the islands. An easy thing to accept. That was the way it had been. Right?

... maybe not. There was a nagging feeling, deep down, but it was something she didn't have the means to figure out, and so, it was often ignored. A misplaced feeling as she thought fondly of memories that were even more confusing that they had been before. Memories that didn't feel like her own. Something missing. But what? Was this always her life? Was she living in a dream?

She was walking through the house, mechanical movements, having just come back from school, dropping her bag by the door, walking up the stairs slowly. She was just about to duck into her room and settle in for the evening when she paused, her eyes caught by a doorway she had not looked at in a very long time. Of course, she had, but her eyes always cast over it without a second thought.

Not today. She had a strong compulsion to go to the attic.

And so, Kairi did. It would make a good story the next day to tell Selphie how higher forces thought it would be a good time to have her take a trip down memory lane about their childhoods. Selphie'd laugh, Tidus and Wakka'd talk about how silly it was and that she was being far too nostalgic for them, and that would be that, most likely. Well, whatever, she had nothing better to do, so up she went.

It wasn't hard to find what was hers. She had her own corner, which she went to automatically after turning on the overhead light. It seemed her mom still cleaned up here from time to time, and there was no dust, except in the darker corners, which she didn't need to go in. She found her boxes, with a sharp, jagged name written on them, letters a little too wonky and drawn ever so slightly incorrectly. Another box had loopy writing. Another was just written with small writing, from a few years ago. She went for the middle box first.

"Scrapbook," she said aloud, pulling out the first item from the box. There was a picture of her on the front. At least, she assumed it was - it was actually just the side of her face and her hair. The focus was undeniably on a paopu tree behind her, the one on the play islands where they'd sometimes watch the sunset. For some reason, this made her laugh. Of course it was. They always took out of focus photos-

Then she frowned. Who... who did?

She didn't remember taking photos with Selphie. Nor Tidus. Nor Wakka. And her parents wouldn't take photos like this. No, theirs would be up on the mantelpiece. Not in a scrapbook. And it couldn't have been herself, if she was the one in the picture.

So who had taken them, then?

She opened the book. There were more pictures of her, decorated with a purple border that had been put together with cardboard and fading tissue paper, a bit crumpled, and sequins and glitter, some of which had been stuck to the photos instead of the actual page. 'Kairi', it said at the top, each letter drawn slightly differently, as if by different sets of hands. She wondered whose.

She flipped the page. This time, it was blue, and was decorated with stars and planets. The pictures were-

There was no people in these. Just objects. There was name at the top of the page, either- just an empty space, where something should have been, but wasn't.

"What?" was all Kairi could say, as the book slipped from her hands and slid forward down her knees where she had been sat with it. "Why would I-" she paused.

It felt wrong. Like something was missing. _Someone _was missing from those pictures.

And whatever doubt of this life around her Kairi had had in fleeting moments made itself known to her, once again, but this time, it was different. It was not the same absent stare, or the quiet pause. It was like missing a step going down the stairs, her heart stopping in a moment of panic.

And there was also the tear that landed against her hand. When she moved it up to wipe her eyes, she realised there were already tear tracks rolling down her cheeks.

Kairi dropped the book to the floor, suddenly intent and serious. She ripped open another box, to find the dolls inside. Some of them she had never seen before, so she thought. They were not hers. That car wasn't hers. That action hero was also not hers. Another box. More photos, better this time. Why would she go to places on her own and have pictures taken of her? She wouldn't. She remembered going to these places with Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie, sometimes. But there were no pictures of them. The only time there was one, was when she was inexplicably stood way off to the side, as if someone had been erased inbetween.

Gone.

Missing.

Her heart ached, and her head hurt.

Why could she not remember-

-_Them_?

Her doubt was not doubt, but her unconscious, not being fooled.

The attic held the clue. But it could not tell her the answer she desperately sought.

It never would.


End file.
